Celestial Command News

Hello!
Yeah, you haven't heard from us for a long time and we are very ashamed of this. Basically, we found ourselves in a kind of moral trap. The update, or even a blog post was so inexcusable long time ago that it seemed that just posting a post would not be enough to justify the delay, and the longer there was no post, the more it seemed so.

Because of that, our plan was to not post anything about this update, and just release a good and high-quality update before the New Year. Probably it was a mistake and we are going to solve it.

But anyway, the problem is, that we can’t manage to complete it before the New Year, and it will be delayed again.

The reason for this is the war in Ukraine, namely, problems with the availability of electricity for Artaani who lives in Ukraine. Approximately half of the time electricity is not available in his house and since Artaani is responsible for many core systems of the game, availability of electricity in his house affects development speed directly. Not to mention how difficult it is to maintain normal morale in a country waging a defensive war. Romenics and Riya also has a lot of additional issues because they were forced to leave their home in Russia.

But anyway, we are currently in relatively secure places and despite such extreme conditions we will try to continue the development.

Currently, the main danger is mostly the threat of lack of money for basic needs. Therefore, we are glad that the game still has some sales, maybe small, but still, and we are very grateful to everyone who supports us on Patreon, despite the lack of updates and information from us.

We decided that from now on, we will try to publish info about development much more often.


[h2]Drones, capital ships and beginning of the game[/h2]

Initially when we started developing of capital ships, we planned to spawn some “basic” capital ship and small ship right at the beginning of the game, because turned out that construction of your base from scratch is too complex and confusing task.

So, when you press “Start” button, you will see this



And this have a couple of problems:

1. It creates a lot of questions, everything is extremely confusing, a lot of individual modules, which for what? What is decoration and what is functional? All of these contraptions are way too complex for a new player who just launched the game. Also, it eliminates “feel of progression” because it seems like you already have everything on the start.
   
   
2. The game genre starts to feel more like RTS game when you have some “main building” and a worker which should gather resources, but that is not our goal.
   We want to keep game more like craft survival game when you start with bare minimum and gradually develop into something big.
   

So instead of giving capital ship right from the start, we focused on the task to make beginning of the game and construction of own capital ship more user friendly.

In result, all that you will have after start of the game is this



Yeah, that’s all. Storage, engines, and most importantly, engineering drones!

Of course, engineering robotic arms looks cool and we probably will use it somehow in the mid game, but its low range makes any kind of construction is extremely uncomfortable and tedious.

Drones, that is another matter, they can easily salvage debris from large radius around the ship and build anything in range, either own small ship or new capital ship.



Construction done, now back to salvaging



Landing pad



Yes, in earlier versions of the game, we already had similar drones, but now they are better than before. Earlier they were physically bound to the ship and was more like an animation effect, but now they acts like individual objects which may fly long away from its carrier ship, or could be destroyed, which is a good foundation for future combat drones.

Also, considering new 3D construction features, you can do something like this





Overall, we are happy with combinations of these 3D feature and drones on small starting ships, now it is easy and fun to extend starting ships into some interesting design just in a few clicks





New power generator, by the way



What about capital ship, earlier we had some problems with design some kind modules specially for large ships, with increased details and special visual design, but came out to the conclusion, that actually, it is not necessary, just a set of scaled up basic modules could work very well, and result could looks cool, especially considering 3D possibilities.



Possibility to place modules on different altitude or unusual rotation can be great tool to achieve interesting design, but player is not forced to do that, and even modules placed only on zero plane should looks well because such method of construction is very comfortable, especially for a new player.

Here is a preparation of all modules for capital size ships. Implementation of Tier 4 size still have some questions considering number of mounting points and game performance, but we will resolve it somehow.





Also, we are working on a lot of other aspects of the game, mostly it is countless usability improvements, but another main task it is overall game design, answer on questions “what to do in the game?” which is always was a problem but should be solved to make it a proper game, not just construction sandbox.




We also completely redesigned tutorial, now it is not a separated buttons in the main menu, but a quest-based system which starts at the beginning and guide you through the start of the game.

Such type of tutorials is the best tutorials, because they don’t force you to learn everything, quit, start the new game, and implement what you managed to remember. Instead, you can just start a normal game, slowly learn the game step by step and continue when tutorial will be completed.

Also during implementation of tutorial, we, as developers more clearly see where the game has usability and game design issues which should be solved with high priority.

We will try to post info about development more often and keep your informed.
Thanks.

Hello, everyone.

To tell the truth, I’ve never thought that I will post this on Steam. As you know, Russia has invaded Ukraine. Our team is located in both of these countries, and the events happening now are absolutely terrible. When this war started, we froze our work, and now our Ukrainian colleague must evacuate, leaving everything behind.

We really want to continue the work on our game, and we really hope that we will make our dream project, but for now, work is fully frozen for an unexpected time.
We know that it is disappointing, in fact, we worked on this update for such a long time, but we can't do anything. We are scared, we are against this war. All money from steam sales and patrons will go to our Ukrainian friend for survival and new equipment. We absolutely understand if you unsubscribe from our Patreon.
Thanks for your support.
NO WAR!

We told that update going to be released in January, but unfortunately, there is still a lot of work to do so we need more time and the update will be delayed, sorry for that.

Another question, when it will be done?

Of course, we may say "delayed for 1 month" again, but honestly, we don't know, and we don't want to announce a date only to delay it again for another month in the future.

Generally speaking, we think it is almost impossible to specify the release date of any game unless the developer made a lot of similar games before, or the game is almost ready and only minor aspects should be tweaked before release.
Both conditions are not true for this case, so the update was delayed for an unknown time.

However, we will try to avoid long periods without posts and will inform you about progress until release, so you will be able to keep track of it.


Also some news about development.

[h2]New command modules[/h2]

Since construction will be possible in 3D, we have more freedom in the placement of command modules. So command modules are redesigned and now they have the standardized size and mounting points, which allow creating more various combinations of decorative modules around.








[h2]Background asteroids[/h2]

Now there are decorative asteroids located below zero planes.
We thought about more dense and visually interesting asteroids fields a long time ago, but considering the top-down view of the game, it had an unexpected problem - it was unclear, "is asteroids is a real obstacle, or is it located much below the trajectory of the ship"?



But we solved it by simply making decorative asteroids darker. It looks a bit weird but seems fine, and overall looks much better than without it. Also, it performs another important task, it indicated the velocity of the ship due to its shifting on the background during movement.

Here is a list of some of the changes that will be done for the next update.



[h2]Issue[/h2]
Imagine how battles of flagships look in various sci-fi movies. Until a certain point, projectiles do not cause any significant damage. When a ship takes enough damage, there are explosions in different places, causing it to fall apart.

In CC, it does not look nearly as epic. Currently, projectiles are literally digging their way through the ship, immediately destroying its modules. As a result, even if the ship survives the battle, it looks like a gnawed apple, devoid of its original shape.

Of course, shields can solve this problem. However, we would be forced to make them account for 90% of the ship's durability, which would reduce the visual variety of battleships. We would like the hull to also seem like strong armor, as it’s often portrayed in sci-fi movies.

In addition, different modules may have very different HP values. For example, if you want to place a lot of small decor on the surface of some large module, then all of it will be blown away by the explosion of the first rocket.

[h2]Solution[/h2]
Now ships will have a single HP pool, calculated from their size. Any hit will reduce this pool. When the value reaches zero, the modules themselves will start receiving damage directly, just as it is currently implemented. However, modules will have much less HP of their own, so they can be destroyed very quickly. You can think of this new system as structural integrity of sorts.



Thus, the problem described above is solved. At the same time, we have maintained the effect of ships physically losing their modules during combat.

Additionally, repairing a ship after each battle will no longer be an annoyance. That is because the HP pool can be replenished at the shipyard. Also, keeping track of the current status of any ship will now be more straightforward.




[h2]Issue[/h2]
At first, it seemed that individual storage in each container was a good idea. Over time, it turned out to be annoying, especially for a ship with many containers.

Of course, it would be an interesting concept for some kind of first-person survival game where you would walk between different chests and sort everything. But in a game like CC, it just does not work.

[h2]Solution[/h2]
Now, each ship will have only one inventory window, the maximum size of which is determined by the number of containers on the craft.



Simple and convenient.




[h2]Issue[/h2]
Currently, you can build something like this:



Such ships are very effective in combat, but they are cheesy, and so are the battles between them.

Remember the various ships from sci-fi movies. Usually, their weapons occupy only 10-20% of the hull.
In real battleships, it is similar. Below each turret, there is a large and complex system for servicing and controlling the weapon.

[h2]Solution[/h2]
There are no simulations of internal logistics in CC, so we will achieve that more easily.
Now, each weapon will require a specific amount of "weapon points.” The larger the ship, the more will be available.



Such a system will encourage building sophisticated ships instead of "a cube with cannons on each side."

3D construction in 2D space

We will start a series of posts about core changes introduced in the next update.

One of those changes is 3D physics, which is more akin to 2.5D.

Earlier, we mentioned that we would turn the game physics from 2D into fully 3D. We've already released a preview version of that new system. 3D is fantastic and delivers some great new possibilities. However, it also brings some disadvantages.

[h2]Advantages[/h2]

• The possibility to rotate and place any module in 3D provides freedom in spaceship construction. In 3D, even a few modules make it possible to create a large number of various ship designs. Also, the ships no longer look flat, and large cannons stand out when placed at the top.
  

[h2]Disadvantages[/h2]

• Navigation could be challenging. In space, there are very few landmarks that allow you to understand your ship's position. Especially if we are talking about altitude in a top-down view.
  It turned out very hard to comprehend whether an object sits above or below the ship. Is it an obstacle or not? It theoretically can be solved with good navigation tools, plus putting all the asteroids on one plane, but that leads to another problem.
  
  
• Navigation would become less fun. If all asteroids are in one plane, you can fly above or below them. As a result, the space will become empty and boring.
  
  
• Implementation of AI navigation in 3D is excessively complex. It's a technical issue, but still.
  
  
• Manual control of weapons would become redundant. Most likely, the enemy ship will be at a different altitude, so all projectiles could miss the target when trying to aim from a top-down view. Of course, there is an auto-targeting mode, but manual control still can be fun.
  
  
• Placement of engines would become finicky. Several additional engines will be required on the top and bottom of the ship to stabilize its rotation. Having to place them will be more annoying than fun.
  

As you can see, there is only one advantage but numerous disadvantages. Even though all these shortcomings are solvable, careless implementation of some solutions could turn Celestial Command into a completely different game. Something like a flight sim with a first or third-person view. Such a game will have very little in common with the original concept and resemble hundreds of similar games on the market. A solution like this is undesirable.

Therefore, we've come to the 2.5D solution that keeps the benefits of 3D while avoiding all the problems.

[h2]How it will be done[/h2]

The game will have a fully 3D construction system. All modules will be placeable on the top and bottom and rotatable. Turrets will rotate not only left and right, but also up and down.
However, all in-game objects will lie on a 2D plane. Ships won't have up and down controls. Only the yaw axis will be steerable.

Such a system will have some odd issues, but they are all easy to solve:

• If part of a ship falls off, it will be pulled slowly towards zero altitude.
  
  
  
  
• If a ship is tall and its center of mass shifts up or down, the craft will move vertically to keep its center of mass at zero altitude.
  
  
• A ship's pitch and roll axes can misalign due to external forces, but they will stabilize automatically.
  
  
• If docking ports are at different altitudes, ships will move up or down to align for docking.
  

Those plans may sound a bit weird, but the test outcomes were positive, both in orbital and planetary game modes.

In the end, we will have 3D ships with the pleasant simplicity of 2D navigation and control.